First, the order of values returned by hashes isn't random, at least not in any formal sense of the word. There's definitely no attempt to make them random as implied by saying the order is "randomized".

Second, %ENV is magical. It's not really a hash (although it might use one), so the properties of hash don't necessarily apply.

First, the order of values returned by hashes isn't random, at least not in any formal sense of the word. There's definitely no attempt to make them random as implied by saying the order is "randomized".

I always assumed that the order is indeed "randomized". Well, I guess I misunderstood perlsec and perlrun. Or maybe not.

The perlsec passage to which you linked says the order shouldn't be assumed to be random. The perlrun passage to which you link doesn't explicitly mention changing key orderings at all. It is not the purpose of the feature to alter the key ordering, much less making it random.

Two problems with your assumption:

The feature in question only kicks in when needed.

Even if you could reliably trigger the feature, it's purpose is to salt the hashing algorithm (i.e. perturb bucket selection). While this has the side effect of affecting key ordering, it hasn't been shown to produce random key orderings.